PROSPERO SABIDO AND ASER LAGUNDA, PETITIONERS, VS. CARLOS CUSTODIO, BELEN MACABUHAY CUSTODIO AND THE HONORABLE COURT OF APPEALS, RESPONDENTS.

Prospero Sabido and Aser Lagunda seek the review by certiorari of a
decision of the Court of Appeals, affirming that of the Court of First
Instance of Laguna, sentencing the Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co., Nicasio
Mudales, and herein petitioners, Prospero Sabido and Aser Lagunda, to
jointly and severally indemnify Belen Makabuhay Custodio and her son,
Agripino Custodio, Jr., in the sum of P6,000 and to pay the costs of
the suit.

The facts are set forth in the decision of the Court of Appeals from which we quote:

“Upon a careful study and judicious examining of the
evidence on record, we are inclined to concur in the findings made by
the trial court. Here is how the Court a quo analyzed the facts of this
case:

‘In Barrio Halang, Municipality of
Lumban, Province of Laguna, two trucks, one driven by Nicasio Mudales
and belonging to Laguna Tayabas Bus Company, and the other driven by
Aser Lagunda and owned by Prospero Sabido, going in opposite directions
met each other in a road curve. Agripino Custodio, a passenger of LTB
bus, who was hanging on the left side as truck was full of passengers
was sideswiped by the truck driven by Aser Lagunda. As a result,
Agripino Custodio was injured and died (Exhibit A).

‘It
appears clear from the evidence that Agripino Custodio was hanging on
the left side of the LTB Bus. Otherwise, were he sitting inside the
truck, he could not have been struck by the six by six truck driven by
Aser Lagunda. This fact alone, of allowing Agripino Custodio to hang on
the side of the truck, makes the defendant Laguna Tayabas Bus Company
liable for damages. For certainly its employees, who are the driver and
conductor were negligent. They should not have allowed Agripino
Custodio to ride their truck in that manner.

‘To avoid any
liability, Aser Lagunda and Prospero Sabido throw all the blame on
Nicasio Mudales. From the testimony, however, of Belen Makabuhay,
Agripino Custodio’s widow, we can deduce that Aser Lagunda was equally
negligent as Nicasio Mudales. Belen testified that the 6 x 6 truck was
running fast when it met the LTB Bus. And Aser Lagunda had time and
opportunity to avoid the mishap if he had been sufficiently careful and
cautious because the two trucks never collided with each other. By
simply swerving to the right side of the road, the 6 x 6 truck could
have avoided hitting Agripino Custodio. It is incredible that the LTB
was running on the middle of the road when passing a curve. He knows it
is dangerous to do so. We are rather of the belief that both trucks did
not keep close to the right side of the road so they sideswiped each
other and thus Agripino Custodio was injured and died. In other words,
both drivers must have driven their trucks not in the proper line and
are, therefore, both reckless and negligent’.

“We
might state by way of additional observations that the sideswiping of
the deceased and his two fellow passengers took place on broad daylight
at about 9:30 in the morning of June 9, 1955 when the LTB bus with full
load of passengers was negotiating a sharp curve of a bumpy and sliding
downward a slope, whereas the six by six truck was climbing up with no
cargoes or passengers on board but for three helpers, owner Sabido and
driver Lagunda (tsn. 308-309, Mendoza). Under the above-stated
condition, there exists strong persuasion to accept what Belen
Makabuhay and Sofia Mesina, LTB passengers, had testified to the effect
that the 6 x 6 cargo truck was running at a fast rate of speed (tsn.
15, 74, 175 Mendoza). From the lips of no less than driver Lagunda
himself come the testimonial admission that the presence of three
hanging passengers located at the left side of the bus was noted when
his vehicle was still at a distance of 5 or 7 meters from the bus, and
yet despite the existence of a shallow canal on the right side of the
road which he could pass over with ease, Lagunda did not care to
exercise prudence to avert the accident simply because to use his own
language the canal ‘is not a passage of trucks.’”

Based upon these facts, the Court of First Instance of Laguna and
the Court of Appeals concluded that the Laguna-Tayabas Bus Co. –
hereinafter referred to as the carrier – and its driver Nicasio Mudales
(none of whom has appealed), had violated the contract of carriage with
Agripino Custodio, whereas petitioners Sabido and Lagunda were guilty
of a quasi delict, by reason of which all of them were held solidarily
liable in the manner above indicated.

Petitioners now maintain: (1) that the death of Agripino Custodio
was due exclusively to the negligence of the carrier and its driver;
(2) that petitioners were not guilty of negligence in connection with
the matter under consideration; (3) that petitioners cannot be held
solidarily liable with the carrier and its driver; and (4) that the
complaint against petitioners herein should be dismissed.

With respect to the first two (2) points, which are interrelated, it
is urged that the carrier and its driver were clearly guilty of
negligence for having allowed Agripino Custodio to ride on the running
board of the bus, in violation of Section 42 of Act No. 3992, and that
this negligence was the proximate cause of Agripino’s death. It should
be noted, however, that the lower court had, likewise, found the
petitioners guilty of contributory negligence, which was as much a
proximate cause of the accident as the carrier’s negligence, for
petitioners’ truck was running at a considerable speed, despite the
fact that it was negotiating a sharp curve, and, instead of being close
to its right side of the road, said truck was driven on its middle
portion and so near the passenger bus coming from the opposite
direction as to sideswipe a passenger riding on its running board.

The views of the Court of Appeals on the speed of the truck and its
location at the time of the accident are in the nature of findings of
fact, which we cannot disturb in a petition for review by certiorari,
such as the one at bar. At any rate, the correctness of said findings
is borne out by the very testimony of petitioner Lagunda to the effect
that he saw the passengers riding on the running board of the bus while
the same was still five (5) or seven (7) meters away from the truck
driven by him. Indeed, the distance between the two (2) vehicles was
such that he could have avoided sideswiping said passengers if his
truck were not running at a great speed.

Although the negligence of the carrier and its driver is
independent, in its execution, of the negligence of the truck driver
and its owner, both acts of negligence are the proximate cause of the
death of Agripino Custodio. In fact, the negligence of the first two
(2) would not have produced this result without the negligence of
petitioners’ herein. What is more, petitioners’ negligence was the
last, in point of time, for Custodio was on the running board of the
carrier’s bus sometime before petitioners’ truck came from the opposite
direction, so that, in this sense, petitioners’ truck had the last
clear chance.

Petitioners contend that they should not be held solidarily liable
with the carrier and its driver, because the latter’s liability arises
from a breach of contract, whereas that of the former springs from a
quasi-delict. The rule is, however, that

“According to the great weight of authority, where
the concurrent or successive negligent acts or omission of two or more
persons, although acting independently of each other, are, in
combination, the direct and proximate cause of a single injury to a
third person, and it is impossible to determine in what proportion each
contributed to the injury, either is responsible for the whole injury,
even tho his act alone might not have caused the entire injury, or the
same damage might have resulted from the acts of the other tort-feasor
x x x.” (38 Am. Jur. 946, 947.)

WHEREFORE, the decision appealed from is hereby affirmed, with costs against the petitioners herein.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Reyes, JBL, Barrera, Dizon, Makalintal, Bengzon, JP, Zaldivar, Sanchez, and Ruiz Castro, JJ., concur.
Regala, J., on leave.